Invictus: Season 1
by RadAct1000
Summary: When the apocalypse hit, it seemed like all hope is lost. Several survivors had to brave the wild, with most of them losing. However, when a group establishes a new civilization for survivors, will people finally have a place to call home? Witness the back story and the rise of this new civilization. R&R! **rated M for many reasons like the comic books. Updated Bi-Monthly**
1. It Must Begin

_Chapter 1: It Must Begin_

Three days.

That's how much time they have until they run out of food, 'they' being about 7 people in Paul's house. Paul was a middle-aged, average family man, who was an accountant before the outbreak. He had a wife, Jennifer, and a son, Grayson. Paul seemed to be the leader of their small group, co-leading with his wife. They tried to effectively barricade their house to hold out until help arrived, but this amounted to nothing more than blocking off all but one exit and hiding out in their basement. The three of them didn't seem to have that much of a chance as a small group of survivors, but they did bring in a family across the street, though, so they have a decent sized group now. Paul was about six feet tall, 190 pounds, and rather intelligent for his age. No one would have expected him to be a leader, but now that he was, no one could argue. Jennifer was about half a foot shorter than him, with long black hair and a well rounded face. She was relatively thin now, due to the little food provisions, but before the apocalypse hit she was thick, by her own accord. Grayson was your average 17 year old kid, not very striking in any sense. His grades held up in school pretty well, and he was by far no idiot, but his looks and personality were on the low side of the scale. Not to imply his personality was bad or rude, but just that he was often quiet and self reserved. His brown hair and overall average build didn't catch any eyes, but perhaps that was a good thing.

The second family was led by Jacob, a tough-guy who had little striking character. He was strict, hard headed, but overall a guy you could trust on. His wife Maddie was shorter than Jennifer, but was in a fit shape, especially in the apocalypse. They had two small children, John, 8, and Katie, 4. John had signs of developing genius, showing a promising future, while Katie was still more focused on things such as playing.

It was about 45 days after the first infection, and roughly 30 days since all power cut off to homes from the main power-lines. They were trapped in a suburb roughly 5 miles from a city called Rayleigh in North Carolina, and that city had fallen within a week of the initial infection. Paul and Grayson, in their attempts to kill time, had written in a small notebook little ideas or theories on why this had happened.

First one was obviously some sort of global warfare or terrorist attack on the United States. But Paul ruled that out immediately, as following the outbreak, there had been no report or sign of global tensions or major attack. However, Grayson thought that perhaps it was a sneak attack. However, an issue with that is that he had read that the disease was spreading around the Eastern Hemisphere as well, so the first theory was weak. Their second theory was a government experiment gone wrong in hopes of being the first to achieve the power that the first theory held, but they couldn't prove anything to back that up. A third theory was perhaps the act of God, but Grayson couldn't understand why God would cause such a disaster to occur; Paul couldn't disagree.

While brainstorming these ideas, Paul went upstairs and soon his son followed. Most of them stayed in the basement with the supplies while Paul normally managed things upstairs, away from the others, so he could be alone in his thoughts. Grayson wandered up the stairs to see his dad with some weapons laid out on the table. One was a crowbar, another a knife, a different, particularly larger knife, and finally: a gun. An M9 to be exact. The gun belonged Jacob, who had claimed to have it for a few years prior to the apocapyse. Grayson never bothered to ask why the man had a gun, but the man never set off an alarm of being dangerous.

"Grayson," Paul said. "We're going to go raid the houses around us for some extra supplies, since we're running thin."

"We only have three days of food left." Grayson commented. "Some of it isn't even that good, either."

"Of course it isn't." Jacob said. "None of this shit is good." Grayson felt a sting from the simplicity of his comment, but he soon shrugged it off.

"Jacob, relax." Paul sharply replied. "There's no need to be a dick about the obvious, got me? Now, Grayson, these are our best weapons against the things out there. Take the crowbar and one of the smaller knives. I'll be taking the larger knife and Jacob's going to take the M9 and his own knife."

"Where are we going?" Grayson asked, picking up the weapons and getting a feel for their weight. Paul anxiously stared at him, as so far Grayson had not even been outside since the power went out. He had no idea how the world outside of his basement had developed.

"About a block over," Paul began to explain, "the houses have remained mostly untouched, as far as we can tell. We're gonna try to get at least 3 houses today, maybe more if the pickings are slim." Paul opened the door to the basement, and yelled down, "We'll be back!" With the sound of farewells behind him, Paul moved a dresser in front of the door in the case that a walker came in, and then led the trio outside.

The first thing the group noticed was the silence. Without the hum of the electric street lights and the usual bustling of cars, it was almost completely silent other than their steps. The second thing was the smell-it was atrocious. Multiple walkers laid on the ground, killed in previous altercations.

"God, I don't think i'll ever get used to this smell." Paul grumbled.

"The government will get this cleaned up soon." Jacob replied.

"You still think they're even around? It's been over a month, I would have imagined something would have happened." Paul retorted, a slight annoyance in his voice. "It seems like we're on our own." To this, Jacob got quiet. The walk was mostly empty, actually, until they reached the street. Two walkers were about 30 feet from each other, both scuffling around. Paul ran up to one and quickly jabbed its skull, causing it to moan and then turn silent. The second one began to scuffle toward them, to which Paul turned to Grayson. "Want your first kill? It's easy."

"No," Grayson said, his body beginning to shake. "I don't want to kill unless I have to."

"Fair enough. I didn't want you to anyway. Killing these things still feels...wrong. Jacob, you know what I mean?"

"Sort of. These assholes have killed the rest of my family and probably my wife's family, so I don't have too much sympathy." Jacob stated as he stabbed the second one in the head. "How many do you think there are?"

"More than enough." Paul replied, leading them to a small house on the right of the street. Jiggling the handle, Paul sighed as he wandered around the house, all doors locked. Finally, he came back to the front. "Grayson, we'll cover you, but you're gonna have to smash the window and climb in and open the door."

"Why not just smash the door knob?" Grayson asked.

"There's no guarantee the door will open and then we may have just hurt the door more than anything." Paul answered. "Let's hurry up." Grayson, unsure of his abilities to handle the task, took a stroll to the window and immediately bashed it with his crowbar. A large shatter echoed through the neighborhood, but it didn't appear to draw any immediate attention.

Grayson cleaned up the glass shards on the bottom of the window sill and slowly lowered himself into the house. It was dark as all the blinds were closed, and the smell was horrid. In the chair was a man whose head was blown off with a pistol, similar to Jacob's. Grayson went to the door immediately and unlocked it, and then the three began to search. Paul took the gun as his own, happy that his small weaponry advanced.

The next half hour was spent searching the home. They found some boxes of cereal, three cans of assorted foods, and a box of chips. Searching the garage, they found it mostly empty but it held a few items, such as gas cans and assorted tools. Paul gladly took what he could and left for home-if things continued this way, they may just make it out alive.


	2. You Can't Stay

_Chapter 2: You Can't Stay_

"Jennifer, do you hear that?" Paul asked one morning, shortly after the group had woken up. There was a small beating outside, a continuous monotone "_bump, bump, bump…_"

Jennifer stopped from preparing their small breakfast to take a listen. The entire group, almost simultaneously, stopped, listening, waiting.

"Is anyone here?!" A bleeding cry struck through the silence. "Please! There's too many!"

"Daddy?" One of the kids in the other family, Katie, whimpered. "I'm scared."

"It's okay, baby," Jacob said. He shot a look at Paul, who was obviously startled by the shout. "Paul, what should we do?"

"I want to go help." Paul said. "Grayson, get your crowbar and knife from yesterday. Jacob, take the gun I have-you can use it better. Let's try to get this guy in before they get him." As he gave this plan, the team began to move out, with continual bumps up up above.

As Paul, Jacob and Grayson ran out, they were met with an odd scene. A man wielding a baseball bat was fighting a mini horde of about six. Behind them lay about three more bodies, implying he had been taking them out one by one.

Paul and Jacob immediately jumped forward. Paul sliced one, while Jacob began to shoot them down one by one. Grayson stood there and waved the man over, allowing the job to be done. The group now lay dead.

"Oh, God, people!" The man shouted, so happy. "I-I can't even begin to describe how hap-"

"Who are you?" Jacob asked, aggression in his voice.

"Why were you being chased?" Paul, equally aggressive, said. "Were you being stupid? Why were you being chased by so many?"

"My name is Guy," he answered. "I was part of a larger group a few blocks from here, but we were separated in an attack from a large horde of like fifty. I had to run away and a few stragglers had followed me I guess."

"A larger group?" Paul asked, intrigued.

"Yes-about thirty, maybe thirty five."

"Seriously?" Jacob asked. "That's almost too good to be true."

"I'll radio back, then." Guy said, reaching into his backpack and pulling out this walkie talkie. "Hello? Base?"

"***_Crztchhhhhh**_ Hello? Who is this?" A female voice said over the walkie talkie.

"It's Guy-part of G2." He said, before unclicking. "G2 is for group 2, my scouting party name." There was a small moment of silence before the radio came back on. This time, it was a man.

"Guy, I can't believe you made it out of that horde. We lost Rich and Carly in the fight." The man's rough voice echoed. "It was terrible."

"I saw Rich go down, I didn't know Carly went too." Guy mourned. "But I've made it out, and I've got a new group of survivors to bring with me."

"More people? Great! Get them and move them into the base, we need more fighters." The man then cut out. Paul looked almost overjoyed, while Jacob was content. Grayson's innocence simply skimmed over the details, and he was just amazed that someone had survived fighting with fifty of these walkers.

Like that, the group was set off. It was only a few minutes to gather all of their supplies. Paul's group set off, following Guy across their destructive environment. The dead lay everywhere, as did scattered cars and broken windows. Paul shuttered as he remembered the initial violent outbreak. People rampaged in the street, which he now realized probably contributed to the outbreak of the disease, and wreaked havoc. Now that it had passed, it was eerily calm.

It wasn't long until they came to a large building. It appeared to be what was once a community church. It was on the side of a road on the borderline of the woods. Paul and Jacob noted how it appeared to be a pretty clean trail at the start of the trees, implying that it had been used for several hikes before the outbreak. The church, however, looked rather fortified. It's windows were all covered with wooden planks. Cars were set up all around it, creating a small barrier. Assorted items had been packed on top of the cars, filling in gaps. Behind the cars were lifted platforms, which Paul soon found out in the hardest way possible.

"Drop your shit now." Guy said, pulling out a gun and pointing it at Paul's group. From that signal, two more shooters emerged from behind the cars. One held a simple pistol, the other held a .22 rifle. Paul was flabbergasted, to say the least. The group could hardly believe what had happened.

"Oh f$#*, this doesn't have to be so damn hard you f*( tards, get on the ground!" Guy shouted again, waving his pistol around. He soon led them, one by one over in front of the church's barricaded entrance on the ground. Paul and Jacob were brought forward as the "leaders", while Grayson, Jennifer, Maddie, and the kids were led and set up behind them. Guy confiscated the guns, but seemed to have left the melee weapons with them.

"You got a good amount of food left on you guys. I was so damn surprised when I saw it. We could go on for a while with that shit, and that wasn't even the whole neighborhood!" Guy laughed, standing back and looking at them. "Look, we have a soft spot for children."

"What are you saying?" Paul questioned, his throat crackling as his tone shifted. "What about them?"

"We don't have room to keep all the people we rob, but we're willing to keep the kids. They deserve a chance to live, right?"

"We all do you psycho bastard." Jacob retaliated. "It'll be a cold day in hell before I let my kids stay with you!"

"Ah. Well, another problem. We don't really allow the people we rob to live. You know, in case they run into a bigger group."

"Why the hell are you doing this?!" Maddie erupted. "We can work together! We don't need to have this argument! You can take our stuff, just don't kill anyone."

"Oh, you think we want to kill? Sure, yeah, psycho bandits just trying to be crazy for the sake of being crazy. We don't want to do this-we have too! We were taking in refugees for weeks after the initial outbreak, and you know what happened? Some asshole flew in with his group, shot us up, stole our supplies, and left. We lost 20 people that day. 20 godd !* people. We aren't allowing that shit to happen again." As Guy was releasing his anger, two workers came out from the barricade and took the supplies and the gun. They hesitated, waiting for the kids.

"Lost offer, dipshits."

"GO TO HELL!" Jacob roared, standing up and stabbing Guy with his knife. Immediately, Guy shot Jacob through the chest, and he fell backward. But in the midst of the confusion, as Jacob fell, the sniper shot. The bullet missed Jacob's falling body and instead pierced Paul, clean through the neck.

"Dad!" Grayson shouted, standing up. Another shot was fired, this time aimed for Grayson. But the sniper appeared to be a horrible shot, missing Grayson and piercing his mom in the shoulder. Grayson tried to do something with his dad, but it was obvious there was nothing to do. Grayson, crowbar in hand, stood up to run away. That's all he could think of doing now. Getting away, running back home. He immediately broke off running, aimlessly at first, but soon noticing the trail in the woods. Grayson held no regard for who was following, but he kept running.

Grayson could only hear gunshots and shouting going on behind him. As he was running in the woods, he turned around to see if anyone was following. A few yards back was his mom, Maddie, and one of the kids. "Kee-keep running Grayson!" His mom shouted, tears and blood on her face.

And he did just that.

Grayson, apparently leading, had broken off of the old beaten path and into the woods. He found a large rock protruding from the ground, which he took to sit under as a small form of shelter. Leaning against the rock, he breathed heavily as he watched the remaining survivors come to the rock. Maddie appeared to be the only one uninjured. She held in her arms John, who appeared to be shot was well.

"John was shot by the man with a pistol," She struggled to say, "it hit his stomach."

"What about Katie?" Grayson asked. He was only met with a blank expression, letting him know what happened without any words. Grayson then turned to his mom, he appeared to be bleeding out severely. "Mom, what should we do?"

"What is there to do?" Jennifer gasped. She lay down against the rock next to Grayson, tearing her shirt to reveal her wound. "The bullet hit something. It didn't go out. There's just so much blood." She sighed. Her tone was very calm, almost as if she had been drugged.

"Can't we-no, can't we..." Grayson's voice trailed off. They sat there as Maddie broke down over her last child. Grayson still couldn't wrap his mind around what had just happened. First Jacob, then Paul, then Katie, now John and Jennifer. It was only a matter of time before both of these people soon passed on to become old memories.

"Listen," his mom grumbled. She was going in and out of consciousness as blood poured from her shoulder. "Please live Grayson. Take care of Maddie, please. Get out of here as soon as you can before those men come and look for us."

"I can't just leave you," Grayson tried to rebuttal. But his mom refused to listen. Within a few minutes, with a few more goodbyes and tears, Grayson's mom bled out in front of him. Maddie, still crying, lay over her kid. Grayon couldn't bear to watch his mom anymore. Without thinking, he got up and grabbed Maddie's hand. He immediately began moving, without thinking of Maddie or what she wanted to do. She didn't object, but she followed him like she was nothing but an object that he was pulling, like a balloon.

* * *

><p>Within two weeks, Grayson and Maddie had created a small, substantial hideout. It was a cabin in a small campsite, which had surprisingly remained quiet during those two weeks. Maddie had been quiet and reserved, almost like a shell of her former self. Because of this, Grayson had to take point on most of their supply runs.<p>

The first run he took nearly cost him his life. Armed with a crowbar, he had broken into the camp's general supply store. When he broke in, the noise attracted three walkers from the surrounding area. He hadn't swept the area around him to make sure it was secure, and now he was trapped in the store with three of them knocking at his door.

Not only was this his first run, but it was the first moment Grayson began to change. A spout of anger never before seen in him came over him, and in a fit of rage he threw open the door and let them come in. In only incomprehensible grunts, he sporadically swung at the roamers, smashing them and knocking them over. The first one that fell on the ground he stabbed in the head with the other side of the crowbar, entering directly into its skull through its eyes.

The second one fell the same way. The third one, however, he let his anger loose. He continually bashed it, first against the wall, then as it fell to the ground. As the brains of the three zombies lay around, he fell to his knees and lost it. He had witnessed the death of both of his parents, his neighbor, two innocent kids...it was too much to keep bottled up.

After a few minutes of letting his emotions freely have at it, he decided the only thing he could do now was survive and make sure he can protect himself and Maddie. Maddie may be going through an even worse pain; losing two kids and a husband must be devastating to her, Grayson thought.

Returning to their shack, Grayson had created a sizable supply pile. Food, some bottled water, snacks, pain meds, and small pieces of medical supplies such as gauze, Grayson and Maddie could have held out their for several more weeks, and Grayson could still be going for supplies for many months after that.

Too bad that was not the case.


End file.
